Name: Strawberry
Ingredients: 1 quart water; 11 pounds sugar; 8 pounds strawberries

Strawberry

Ingredients

1 quart water
11 pounds sugar
8 pounds strawberries

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine water and sugar in an open kettle to make a syrup.
Cook the syrup until it reaches 265°F (130°C) on a candy thermometer.

Cook the jam

Add strawberries to the syrup and cook slowly at just below boiling.
Skim off any foam while cooking.
Stop cooking when the thermometer reads 219°F (104°C).
Pour the mixture into shallow pans to cool.

Jar and seal

Fill hot jars with the mixture.
Place the rubber and cap loosely on top of each jar.
Sterilize jars in a water bath for 20 minutes.
Tighten the covers.
Invert the jars to cool.
Test the seals.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Sweetens the jam and, with the cooking, helps it thicken and set as it cools.
Strawberries: Provide the fruit flavour, colour and bulk of the jam.
Water: Dissolves the sugar to form the syrup that the strawberries cook in.

The step that matters

Stop cooking at the right thermometer reading. Sugar concentration rises as water evaporates. Stopping at 219°F (104°C) gives enough sugar and pectin concentration for the jam to set. Cooking too little leaves it runny, and cooking too long can make it stiff and prone to scorching.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.